2009: Recap

an entry from the first days of this blog:

these are two things I wrote, right after my graduation from NYU:

"(1) just because you're done getting grades, doesn't mean you're done learning.
Keep expanding yourself intellectually.

(2) Follow your own definition of success and achievement.
that's not an excuse to be happy with your status quo. it's a reminder that your talents are different than those of the law-school bound 4.0 student. devote yourself to sharing and expanding your talents. on your terms."

that's generally the mission of the year. I feel like I took a semester off to just hang around, do some good things but not really kick any ass, but now I'm enrolling in the University of Life."

So, did I get to 99%? Although this was not my initial idea- in fact, I did not think of this until literally a minute ago- I will take the 9 'courses' I listed at the beginning of the year, and give a 0-11 grade for each one.

• Physical Education- 2. I did some workouts in January but they quickly faded from my weekly routine. I didn't devolve into unhealthiness, but I certainly didn't push myself out of the ordinary.
• Literature- 6. I read eight or nine books, with six published reviews; also a couple essays. Decent!
• Music Education- 9. The project where I found the most consistent success, I produced 97 music reviews this year and vastly expanded my music awareness. I fell short of my goal of 100, only barely, after some lulls and a slower pace in general overcame me in the summer/end of year.
• Home Economics- 8. I'm cooking more, keeping my room decently clean, and I have $6000 in my bank account. I've got one regular 'day' job and a lot of first-step-on-the-ladder success with my creative-for-pay work.
• Creative Writing- 1. I think I wrote some sketch outlines but I really didn't produce anything.
• Improv Theatre-11. I got cast, one of my big goals of the year. I haven't accomplished everything I want to do on the performance side, but I'm giving myself the max grade for my additional success coaching- I've never been prouder or felt more on-track of my dreams with a paying job.
• Painting-2. I did a few smaller paper works early on, but I didn't complete a single work on canvas, I haven't developed any momentum in this regard.
• Art Criticism- 6. Saw a decent number of museums and wrote some very good, thorough reviews.
• Cartooning- 7. This grade would be very low for one-panel newspaper cartoons (I never drew a second batch), but it gets higher for my success with the doodle blog (up to a shade under 500 followers at the one year mark, and around 527 now, just a week into the new year.)


So that adds up to… 52. 52 in 2009! I'm being a tough grader (and of course, a '6' doesn't mean a 60% in the conventional grade sense), so I'll take this to mean that I succeeded at the stuff that I worked on, and lay the blame for where I was unsuccessful mainly on, not maintaining my discipline and work effort.

other highlights, greatest hits from 2009:

Obama Inauguration, Becky, Geth Bus, Ernie Gumboldt, The Bishop, Zuleyka's cagematch, Platinum, The Slumber Party, SPLISH SPLASH, WWH, I love you, Chompetition, Unemployable, Colbert, the Michael Jordan of cups, North Carolina Thanksgiving, Texas Christmas, Katie's vacation/NYE at the end.

There's some big stuff coming up in 2010, big plans I've got to continue working and developing my goals in various fields. Ultimately the main narrative of 2009 is, I found a way to live a lifestyle with flexibility, free time, a decent amount of money, and some creative integrity; now the great mission for 2010 is to build from this freedom and use my free time to get me in the best possible shape as a successful, well rounded person moving forward.